Chapter 7: Sharp Talons
“Why can’t we just go back to Megaton and tell her we can’t deliver this letter?”
“If we find Ian and he’s dead, yes.” Megan stepped over the rubble that had fallen into the Potomac when the overpass bridge broke. “Besides, might find something useful. Haven’t been in any metro tunnels yet.”
“Wait. I thought you said we were going to a station.”
“And we are.” When Rarity kept quiet, the woman realised what was confusing her. “Oh. Before the war, Washington had a huge network of underground train tunnels,” she explained, waving an arm about to get across just how big it was. “I’m guessing more than a few people went down and tried to ride out the apocalypse there.”
“Huh. Underground trains. They obviously didn’t run on steam,” the mare mused.
“I don’t know what they ran on, honestly. Good luck finding one that still works, though,” Megan snorted. “I’ll bet a hundred caps that half the tunnels have caved in.”
As they made their way towards Northwest Seneca Station, Rarity looked around. The darkness made it very hard to see, and she had been forced to use her horn to illuminate her path, Megan using her Pip-Boy for the same purpose. The dim light threw the entire landscape into a mix of menacing shadows and eerie voids. More than once she had nearly walked right into a slab of concrete or a rod of rusty rebar.
“We’re nearly there.” Megan’s eyebrows rose up, though the gloom hid that. “Who the hell are they?” she asked, looking at the three figures huddled around a barrel.
“How am I meant to know?” Rarity asked quietly. “I know less than you do.”
Megan pursed her lips as she thought. “Stay here. Use your rifle and keep an eye on things.”
“Wait, what? You’re just going to leave me here?” Rarity hissed angrily. “You are crazy!”
“No, I want to keep you safe. They could be dangerous.” As Megan pulled her rifle off her back, Rarity tapped on her shoulder. “What?”
“What if they are dangerous?” she asked worriedly.
There was a small pause. “Aim for the head.” With those four words the woman walked carefully towards the group.
“So, what happened next?”
“Well, I found out just how lucky we were that the old man in Minefield didn’t hit us.”
“Kill the bitch!”
Rarity took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The recoil nearly sent the scope right into her eye, and she almost dropped the rifle in shock. When she recovered and looked again, one of the attackers was on the ground, not moving.
The whole meeting had turned sour before it had even started. The three strangers had opened fire on Megan before she even had a chance to retaliate. Though Megan had managed to drive them back with her Flamer, two of the attackers had rifles, and Rarity had been forced to act.
“Sniper!” a second voice called out, his head swivelling around as he tried to find her. Fortunately, he stood completely still, allowing Megan to drop her Flamer, to one knee and shoot him herself. As the man fell, the third jumped out from behind the building he had been taking cover behind. He ran and tackled Megan, both of them going down in a tangle of limbs.
“Megan!” Rarity yelled. She dropped her rifle and galloped to help her friend.
“Get off me!”
“I’m gonna cut off your head and take it back on a fucking plate!” the man yelled. He was straddling Megan, one hand on her throat. “But not before I make you pay!” he screamed, punching her in the face repeatedly.
The man was so engrossed in causing her harm that he failed to hear the pony approach from behind. “Get off of her!”
He stopped to turn to the source of the voice, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a combat shotgun. “Oh shi- ”
Megan shakily pushed the corpse off of her, looking at the space his head had recently vacated. “T-thanks, Rarity,” she mumbled, rubbing her jaw.
“I just killed him,” the mare whispered, letting the drum-barrel shotgun fall to the ground. “I saw him hitting you, and I just- ”
“Rarity,” Megan said, picking up her rifle, “you heard him. They were trying to kill me. You saved my life.”
“When I saw him on top of you, when I saw you getting hurt, I just... I felt so angry.” Rarity looked at the gun she had just dropped. “I didn’t even think, I just... wanted to hurt him.”
Megan struggled to her feet and limped over to the mare. Bruises were forming all over her face, one of her eyes beginning to swell shut. Her right cheek was cut open, leaking blood onto the ground as it dripped down her chin. She leant down and pulled the pony into a hug. “You saved me,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
“I have no regrets about what I did that night, though. Those men were evil.”
The other five looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Isn’t evil a bit... strong?”
“Usually, I would agree. But in this case, no. Evil is the perfect word to describe them.”
While Rarity had gone to retrieve her sniper rifle, Megan had taken it upon herself to dig through the men’s pockets. “Did you... find anything interesting?” In lieu of words, Megan held out a piece of paper. Rarity carefully took it and read it. “Holier-than-thou white knight? A thousand cap bounty? Is that a lot?” Megan nodded. “They want your head?” the mare asked, sounding disgusted.
“Don’t ask me why.” Megan limped to the one Rarity had headshotted. “Nice shooting, by the way,” she commented, poking the corpse with her foot.
The unicorn was very unsure how to feel about that compliment. There was no denying that her shooting had been very effective. But she was still uneasy about the fact that she was killing. “Why are you labelled a ‘white knight’?” she asked, trying to take her mind off things.
“I honestly can’t see why.” Megan looked up at the starry sky. “No, it can’t be Burke. He’s dead.”
“Burke?”
“That psychopath wanted me to blow up Megaton. I ended up killing him to protect the sheriff,” she explained. “Unless he had someone else there to... put the bounty on my head.” Megan groaned and put her head into her hands. “Great. Just what I need, a bunch of mercenaries trying to kill me. As if the Wasteland wasn’t making things hard enough already.”
As Megan’s speech devolved into a lot of profanity (Rarity almost couldn’t believe what she hearing), she walked closer to the body of the man she had killed with her sniper rifle. She almost threw up.
His face was almost entirely intact, the only sign of something being wrong the bottlecap-sized hole in his cheek. The back of his head, though, looked as though it had exploded, revealing to the world (and any hungry wildlife) the inside of his skull.
“Huh. This rifle looks different.” Rarity happily looked away from the corpse to see what Megan was talking about.
The woman was inspecting the magazine of the gun. “Definitely not American, but it uses five-fifty-six rounds. It looks like it fires the rounds at a higher pressure, too,” she added, pulling the bolt of the gun back to chamber a round. “Weighs a little more than the R91, though.”
“What does any of that mean?”
“Probably a Chinese gun, though what the hell it’s doing here I have no idea.” Megan just shrugged. “Not like it really matters, though. A gun’s a gun.” She straightened up, then promptly fell over, clutching her left thigh. “Rarity,” she groaned through the pain.
The unicorn had rushed over the moment the woman had fallen over. “What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly, her eyes running up and down her body to try and see what it was.
“Bullets. In my leg.” She rolled over and let go of her leg, her hand now dripping with blood. “Get it out, would ya?” she asked.
Rarity just stared for a moment. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Use your magic and pull them out. I’d do it myself, but I can’t get a good angle.”
Rarity gulped and reached out with her magic. She probed each wound carefully, not wanting to cause any more damage, and found the source of her pain. “That feels funny,” Megan commented. “And I don’t mean - Argh! Watch it!”
“Sorry! Sorry!” Rarity wilted under the woman’s glare. “I got one of them out, though,” she chuckled nervously, holding up the bloody metal slug.
“There’s two more, though,” Megan said with gritted teeth. “Just... hurry up.”
Two more pained grunts and two more apologies later and the bullets had been successfully removed. Megan finished bandaging up her leg and got to her feet. “Thanks, Rarity.”
“It was nothing,” she replied, still a little shaken by what she had just done.
“Let’s find somewhere to rest for the night. The letter can wait until tomorrow.”
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- Omega_code · 55k words · 598 38 · 9.1k views
- Omega_code · 9.6k words · 396 11 · 6.4k views
- Regidar · 13k words · 711 41 · 6.5k views
- Speven Dillberg · 156k words · 384 19 · 8k views
- Silent Scout · 35k words · 345 35 · 5.9k views
- Shadowflash · 53k words · 415 36 · 5.3k views
- ed2481 · 67k words · 843 48 · 12k views
- Jar of Dirt · 11k words · 748 22 · 9.4k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.193 seconds
Total duration
617 users online
869,944 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I'm really enjoying this much more than I thought I would, given the general quality of MLP/Fallout xovers. I look forward to seeing where you take it. I'd love to see rarity get ahold of the "Scandalous Nightie" or whatever it was and fix it up for Megan.
Good Job.
it'll be interesting to see Rarity's reaction to not only the ghouls, but the vampires as well. Keep goin and stay golden^^
I can just see Rarity saying, "They were definitely evil, the crosshairs were red, after all."
I agree. They have train tunnels, but I doubt Rarity would have ever heard of an underground train station.
Another good chapter.
Keep up the good work.
If I wasn't writing my own crap right now. . .
Read later list it is then. With that rating, I look forward to it.
Great work, *grabs popcorn* eagerly awaiting next installment.
I remember my first encounter with the Talon Mercs..
Many explosions were had that day...
great chapter, keep up the good work
I can't wait for the first time an enemy tries to throw a grenade at them.
Meet the Sniper: Now featuring Rarity
Great chapter!
2029883 "I'm not a crazed gunman, Dad, I'm an assassin... Well the difference being, ones a job and the others mental sickness."
For a moment there I thought you had them open fire on the Family. I've never done that before in any of my playthroughs, at least not before they introduced themselves. Though I usually do like to kill them at some point, Arefu hostility be damned.
2030386
"Dad... put... put mom on the phone!"
YAY I'm loving the hell out of this fic. It's so much goddamn fun!
So much Fallout pseudo-lore! Now I want to try out the previous versions of Fallout... (I've played Fallout:New Vegas to death)
Magic sure is handy when you need to yank the slugs out of your leg. Much more sanitary than using grubby fingers or rusty forceps too. Now if Rarity can just get a handle on how to hold the rifle securely, and not knock herself out shooting it, she'll be all set.
You have the best Fallout crossovers.
This is a bloody brilliant story. I love it
. Great I dea to put Rarity into the Capital Wasteland and have it change her. Looking forward to the next chapter eagerly, also I love the cover art image, it's perfect. 
Am I the only one here that wants a Diamond of the Capital Wasteland Rarity vs. a Dark Wanderings Twilight Sparkle battle to the death?
I like the concept, but the execution is really faulty. I walked into this not knowing a damn thing about Fallout, as I have never played any of the games. I haven't even read Khat's fic.
Rarity coming back displays a clear dissonance as from what we knew her as and what she now is. The emotional tension and suspense starts there, as we get curious as to what could provoke such a change in our fair lady. The problem occurs during the transitions and the Fallout scenes. We are given so few, meager details about what is happening in the present, what happens in the past has that much less of a punch. There's just an occasional conversation to add some flavor text, but that's it. There's not enough to keep the momentum going.
The sequence of Fallout events, in addition to the shaky transitions. There is no means to understand what takes place when.Is one scene happening hours after another or days? I can't tell. There is no measurable sense of time to keep track of events. Things are just happening and I can't get emotionally invested in either Rarity's change in attitude or the fallout scenes.
2039809
People, you see this? This comment? it's fucking brilliant.
Thank you for telling me everything I am doing wrong. As opposed to some writers, I do NOT want the comments to devolve into a hug-box. I want actual constructive criticism I can use to improve. Journeyman, I will do everything I can to improve on those things. I didn't even realise I was forgetting basic things like a general description of the time of day. I feel stupid for that. Also, perhaps an apology is in order for letting you down.
Hey, great Fan fiction. It's given me an idea as well...
Also, I hope I see Rarity chewing out Blueblood soon~
2038759
Now that you mention it, yes, yes I do.
2029510
Weird thing is that I usually meet them in front of that Super Duper Mart that Moria sends you, too.
2039809 I see tearing my fic a new one wasn't enough for you, huh? You just had to find another victim
. I feel betrayed
Love the story. You know, I actually thought about using Rarity in Into the Black. I decided against it because 1) I can see Rarity taking to killing too easily, and 2) Twilight nerdgasming to all the tech is too fun. There are other reasons, but those will have to be secret for now.
I can't wait for the next chapter.
2081208
I have plans for a military Rarity. Just give me a little time; it should be awesome.
I take my reviewing shit seriously. You can't rush awesome when you review like a sir.
Where's Sweetie Belle in all this? And what about Rarity's parents? You would think they would be on the top of the list of people to see after coming back.
Nice chapter by the way. Though I will say that I prefer Rarity's interactions with her friends than her exploits in the wasteland.
You know there is a mod for Fallout 3 called Fallout Wanderer's Edition, right? You can add a ton of more content to the game as well as add it to your story.
why was thic cancelled?
Cancelled?
That's funny tony.
srysly tho wen is next update
Srysly
Pls
Canceled?
To qoute an insperational figure,
...
I came into this fanfic knowing it was canceled.
And then I actually hit the last chapter...
My question is... Why cancel it? I mean, you had an AMAZING premise, but like 2039809 said, your problem was with the details. The minor things that REALLY make a story jump out at you.
I enjoyed it because I know a bit about Fallout 3. Admittedly, giving a few more details here and there, like the scene playing out when you would cut to Canterlot, or the armor of the enemies(I'll be honest, when you were talking about three guys around a barrel, I thought you were referring to a trio of ghouls that you could encounter), and that would help matters significantly.
In your shoes, I wouldn't have Cancelled this. I would've put it On Hiatus, Pending Rewrite.
Of course, you OBVIOUSLY aren't me(Besides, why would I review my own story?), so your thinking probably is different from mine. I hold nothing against you for your decision. Your fic, therefore: Your decision. You're probably busy with "Bear, Scribe and Paladin", anyway.
I give this story five moustaches-
-out of five.
2203552
i would like to know why he cancelled it too. i havent read it yet but if its like his other works its going to be brilliant. i would love to know why he constantly cancels his stories as the grinding gears story of his i fucking loved the 3 chapters he has of it. it seams the only ones he hasnt cancelled are wayward courrier and bear, scribe and paladin.
Oh hey, a story I thought looked ridiculous based on the title, that turned out to be gut wrenchingly awesome in no way I can accurately describe....
~yay~
2203552>>2208635
I made a blog post. Read that for details.
WHY IS THIS CANCELLED?!
2216431
DID YOU EVEN READ THE COMMENT DIRECTLY ABOVE YOURS, YOU INCOMPETENT SHIT-HEAD!?
Seriously, this is on the second page of the top rated human fics and it's already canceled? Man...
I know you just kinda created this spontaneously and were really just doing what ever popped up into your head, but there is nothing really wrong with that. Hey, maybe if you are up for it some time down the road you could reboot this or just make a plan on how you wanted to proceed from where you left off.
2211878 i think it's pretty funny that you basically pulled something so magnificent as that story out of your ass
bummer that you decided to quit though.
You make me sad.
yes I know its cancelled but I want it in my favourites as its a good read and I want it there to prove its good. im annoyed you cancelled it but meh. you even cancelled grinding gears.....but meh, I guess all good things die young.
Hey Tony, I'd honestly like for you to consider uncancelling this and rewriting it in the future. Why? Because it's in third place in the Game Crossover group if you sort it by Rating.
I'd like to add my name to the 'bring this back' petition.
I also wish to have you continue this story at a later date when you find you have the time. Until such time I will fave it so I am made aware of any added chapters.
Hope you bring this back. Someday u love this story
2576595
Eeyup
this is a realy good syory and i hope you bring it back
this looks like a fun story but i dont want to read something thats not going to finish!
...???
...What happened to the fourth chapter?
CANCELLED???
